Photo courtesy: Kandon Fears
Florida State’s Pi Lambda Phi have found themselves fighting for the livelihood of their fraternity after Tallahassee’s city commission voted on a consequential matter at Wednesday’s meeting.
The commission voted to remove language stating that fraternities and sororities are allowed to own property in the CU-45 district. If enforced, the new zoning amendment would essentially leave Pi Lambda Phi, a fraternity with a unique and progressive creed, without a home. The fraternity, well within their rights, recently bought the East College Avenue property to serve as their permanent residency. After many complaints, ranging from excessive noise to public drunkeness, residents decided to take the issue up with the city government, resulting in the CU-45 amendment being passed.
Ramon Guillen spoke at the city commissioners meeting on Wednesday. Gullien, an alumni brother of Pi Lambda Phi, gave passionate testimony, but the 3 minutes allotted to him proved to be an insufficient amount of time to issue his array of rebuttals.
Gullien expressed his disappointment following the events that transpired in the chambers. He discussed how false narratives have clouded the judgment of many residents and representatives.
It is his belief that the areas affected by the amendment may not receive a chance to discover what his fraternity is about. Pi Lambda Phi, founded in 1865, was the first non-sectarian fraternity in the United States and continues to select men upon the merit of their character without regard to race or religion.
Guillen helped to charter the Epsilon Lambda Chapter of Pi Lambda Phi at Florida State University in 1996; a period of racial and sexist turbulence within university Greek life. Guillen currently lives in Miami but made the trip to Tallahassee because he felt obligated to live and defend his creed, one he promised to uphold nearly 30 years ago.
Guillen went on to share a sentence of the Pi Lambda Phi creed, “No society of men can flourish unless members of that society are endowed with the opportunities and privileges of freedom and equality. ” He cited this because he is concerned both the community and brothers will be denied the opportunity to engage in meaningful discourse about diversity due to what he calls being “targeted” by the city of Tallahassee.
Guillen concluded by challenging anyone who speaks on his fraternity to “have the decency to research what they are about and see for themselves why they are being unfairly equated with other fraternities.”
Next week Guillen and his brothers will be preparing key lime pies, and knocking on doors to
convey their message to the community.